As we think back and remember these dear friends whom we honor here today, each one of us has a particular story to tell about them from our cadet days and from our days of service together. We could go down this list here and pause at each name and remember a wonderful story about each one. And I would hope that this weekend we would do that; that we would call to mind each one of these classmates and be thankful for their service in defense of freedom.

What an interesting idea freedom is; it’s unknown to most of the world. I served 2 tours of duty in Berlin in the 70s when the "Berlin Wall" was up. After I retired I did some traveling for the OCF and went back to Berlin in the early 90s after the wall had come down. Carolie and I went to places where we couldn’t go before. We walked through the famous Brandenburg Gate and we walked down Unter Den Linden. And as we did that, it struck me that I crossed in a moment what had separated millions of people for almost 30 years.

This was the place where President Kennedy stood and declared: "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us...."

This was the place where President Reagan challenged the Soviet Premier: "Mr. Gorbochov, tear down this wall."

But the place that drew me most was Checkpoint Charlie. By the early 90s it been dismantled and stored somewhere in a museum, but as I stood at the place where it used to be I vividly recalled what it was like when I served in Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie was the only authorized place where people could enter the Soviet Sector or come into the American Sector. It had been the flashpoint between democracy and communism, and between freedom and slavery. It was the place where Soviet tanks and American tanks from F Company, 40^th Armor squared off in 1961. Many people consider the idea of freedom "passé" today. Yet Jesus understood the human need to be free. He spoke to a subjugated Jewish people under the heel of the Roman boot when he promised, "When the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (Jn 8:36). No, there’s a thirst for freedom deep within the human spirit that’s rarely understood or appreciated until it’s taken away. And as Carolie and I walked around the old Soviet Sector and stood at Checkpoint Charlie that summer in 1991, we were reminded once again of the abiding truth of that.

We were reminded that as conditions deteriorated in the East after WW II, more than 3 million East Germans fled to the West. The Soviet answer to this massive hemorrhaging of freedom-loving people was to build a wall. And within a period of just one month, 18 million Germans lost the freedom to leave their borders.

At first there was no wall in Berlin only 15 miles of barbed wire. Hundreds of observation towers were built. Houses within 200 yards of the border were torn down and the occupants forced to move.

Until the buildings were torn down, a stream of freedom seekers jumped from the windows into sheets held by West Germans below. Young babies were thrown from the windows; very old people jumped. Soon bricks began to cover every open window to keep that from happening.

As the barbed wire was replaced by a strong wall, escape attempts became more dangerous and sometimes more violent. Trucks full of people crashed at high speed into the wall. Some managed to run to freedom while snipers in observations towers killed many others.

After 5 years, fortifications along the wall were increased drastically to stop these freedom runs. Weapons trained to fire automatically at moving targets protected kill zones for hundreds of yards. Land mines were placed throughout these killing zones along with tank traps.

And still the people came.

Tunnels were built under the wall. Cavities were carved in automobiles, trucks, electrical generators, and furniture to hide people hoping to find freedom. Some tried to escape by hot air balloons, sail-planes, hang-gliders. Even some of the East German border guards experienced this thirst for freedom. Over 28 years, more than 2000 dropped their weapons and ran to freedom.

I can’t adequately explain to you this afternoon the thirst for freedom that existed in East Germany for nearly 30 years. At best, I can evoke what memories still remain in what I saw and heard and read.

But I do know that I left Berlin with a sacred appreciation of the heritage of freedom I’d been given. I also have today a much deeper knowledge of the cost Christ paid to take down the wall that separated me from God. You see, the road to freedom has always been through killing zones, from Calvary to Checkpoint Charlie. The currency of freedom is blood; it’s always been that way and it always will be that way.

A senior POW from the Vietnam War once shared something that had been written on the wall of the Hanoi Hilton - and I’ll close with this. He said that the words on the wall had no date and no signature. They simply said, "Freedom has a taste to those who fight and die that the protected will never know."

All of us here today have spent at least a portion of our lives insuring both the safety of Americans and defending this idea of freedom and in the process we’ve acquired a certain taste for it that perhaps others don’t have or which they take for granted. Freedom has a special taste to soldiers because we know just how costly it can be. And we can certainly appreciate this tremendous cost as we honor our deceased classmates today. Their message to us doesn’t change. It continues to be a message of duty and courage and commitment to the things that are really important in life. Their memory reminds us that we’re to be honorable and considerate and decent men and women interested in, concerned about, and committed to God, to each other, to West Point and to real freedom. They continue to inspire us even today. Peace then to their dust, and honor to their memory forever.

Let me conclude with a poem sent to me by Jack Rucker.